The President of the European Commission, German Ursula von der Leyen, has announced that she intends to make the construction of European Defense, the pillar of the action of the new European Commission.
To this end, the former Minister of Defence plans to create the conditions to multiply European industrial defence programmes, in order, in speech at least, to rapidly improve the resilience and strategic autonomy of the Union, in terms of industrial defence capacities, military means, but also means of transport adapted to rapidly move forces if necessary.
This Europe of Defence 2.0, as envisaged by Ursula von der Leyen, would therefore be adorned with all the virtues, and would represent the ultimate solution to protect Europe from the threats that have been accumulating for a good ten years now, without any significant reaction so far.
But is this really the case? Is the European solution, objectively, the most appropriate response to face today's threats? Above all, does it meet the interests of its members, and in particular of the only European country to have, today, real strategic autonomy, France?
In this section:
European Defence in 2017 and the causes of its failure
The European Defence Community, namely an initiative aimed at developing a common military power within Europe, in order to have more influence on defence issues, particularly vis-à-vis the United States, is not new. The first major initiative of this kind was the European Defence Community, or EDC, in the early 50s, which was ultimately aborted after the French Parliament refused to participate.
Since then, the idea has re-emerged cyclically, depending on international events and the ideology of heads of state, particularly French and German. The term "Europe of Defense" appeared in 2017, when the newly elected French President, Emmanuel Macron, a convinced European and fervent defender of a European defense construction, and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, jointly launched several major Franco-German industrial defense programs, such as MGCS, SCAF, CIFS, Tiger 3 and MAWS, to create the bases.
If the French president's initiative was purely ideological, this was not the case on the German side. Indeed, for Angela Merkel, it was primarily about guaranteeing Germany against the possible consequences of the tensions between Berlin and Washington, while Donald Trump was launching continuous blows against a Germany that would "take advantage of American protection, without paying the price", essentially for commercial purposes.
For a few months, the harmony between Paris and Berlin seemed perfect. However, after a year, after relations between Angela Merkel and Donald Trump had cooled somewhat, Germany undertook several unspectacular backpedalings that severely eroded the initiative's potential.
After withdrawing from the Tiger III program, Germany did the same with respect to the CIFS and MAWS programs, while tensions over industrial sharing concerning the two key programs, SCAF and MGCS, became more intense, to the point of freezing both programs in a state of stasis for several years.
After Joe Biden's arrival at the White House in January 2020, this Franco-German initiative had then died, with Berlin turning again to its American partner for several major programs, such as the P8 patrol aircraft, the F-35A fighter and the Patriot air defense. Even if SCAF and MGCS remained, the momentum was stopped, and the common desire to commit to European strategic autonomy was forgotten.
Ursula von der Leyen wants to make Europe of Defence 2.0 the primary mission of the European Commission, on the same conjunctural bases as previously
The start of the war in Ukraine, the rise in tensions between NATO and Russia, and Vladimir Putin's numerous threats against Europeans since 2022 had not, until now, brought Berlin back to this initiative.
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The kind of announcements that put you on edge.
Are you aware of any credible policies that defend our sovereign interests in this matter?
Sacrificing everything for ideals and especially in favor of false allies who do not hesitate to betray us at the slightest opportunity is extremely serious and annoying.
As they say, it's better to be alone than in bad company.
Yes, I completely agree with you, it also got me a bit upset, as they say in the southwest.
How can we allow Mrs. von der Leyen the right to come and interfere in our defense policy? This person already does not respect our agriculture by going to sign an agreement (Mercosur) or she lets in agricultural products that use products banned in Europe and that our farmers do not have the right to use. And it is this lady who is going to come and arrogate to herself the right to define the European defense policy, we think we are dreaming! We already hear that to think about the future helicopter we need the Americans, for the Hidef anti-missile shield it is the Israelis? As far as I know, whether it is Eurocopter or MBDA, we have no lessons to receive from anyone, especially not from the Germans who are going to kneel before Trump again and act like nice, obedient lapdogs.
I hope that this time Mr Macron will finally open his eyes and send them to the...
I doubt it. While he has been rather rational on many issues, in matters of defence and Europe, he is dogmatic without equal.
yes, certainly, but as they say, only idiots never change their minds, and that our president is rather an intelligent person and that he might be a little fed up with our pseudo programs that lead nowhere, only into the wall?
Well, we'll put that on our New Year's wish list, hoping it's not worse than this one!
It also seems necessary to rationalize the arms manufacturers as the USA did, for example 3 aeronautical manufacturers is at least 1 too many, the other sectors are even more complicated. The strategy of each country was also different, France very oriented towards Opex in Africa or elsewhere, with for example light armored vehicles on wheels while Germany or Poland are oriented towards conflicts in Europe and rather against Russia. So it will require a big effort to synchronize all this.
We see how successful it has been for them. Today, they pay twice as much for their weapons as we do, and 2 times more than the Russians and the Chinese... They are largely returning to this paradigm, and are trying, on the contrary, to bring out an alternative offer based on startups, such as Anduril etc.